Life sentence rescinded for man convicted of drug dealing as accuser proven ‘insane’

The Appeals Court in Abu Dhabi cancelled the 25-year life sentence as the evidence obtained from a co-defendant, who was said to be 'insane', was ruled inadmissable.

ABU DHABI // A man sentenced to life in prison for trafficking drugs has been acquitted by the Appeals Court.

It was concluded that the evidence used to convict him came from a co-defendant, who has since been found to be mentally incompetent.

Emirati H M was arrested a month after co-defendant A H, who is also an Emirati, was caught during an undercover police operation.

Undercover agents had been following A H for months and negotiated potential deals with him. On the day of his arrest, he met undercover police outside the shop Al Ezdehar in Al Shamkha. When a four-wheel-drive vehicle stopped nearby, he walked towards it with a bag containing Dh7,000 worth of tramadol pills and handed them over. He promised future deals where he would be able to provide other types of drugs.

Police arrested him at the scene.

A month later, prosecutors said follow-up investigations had been made and H M was discovered to be connected to the case.

He was charged with supplying A H with drugs for trafficking.

At the Criminal Court A H said he was insane and unaware of his actions; he had been taken advantage of by H M to sell drugs.

A psychiatric report issued to the court found him to be mentally incompetent and he was cleared of all charges.

H M, meanwhile, received a 25-year life sentence for dealing drugs and was convicted of consuming hashish and amphetamines, which were found in his urine sample.

At the Appeals Court his lawyer, Hadeya Al Hammadi, argued that the evidence collected by the police and CID incriminated A H and not H M.

The lawyer said if police wanted to arrest A H’s supplier they could have stopped the Land Cruiser on the day of the incident and arrested whoever was inside.

“They already had an arrest warrant and could have carried out the arrests while catching him in the act. Why did they wait for a month and then arrest H M?” she asked the court.

The lawyer noted that the urine sample attributed to her client that contained the drugs did not have a label with his name tag and there was no proof that it belonged to H M.

“Upon inspecting his house, they did not find anything drug related or of significance, only a small amount of cash,” she said.